Preface

Intended
Audience

The Slackware Linux operating system is a powerful platform for Intel-based computers.
It is designed to be stable, secure, and functional as both a high-end server and
powerful workstation.

This book is designed to get you started with the Slackware Linux operating system.
It's not meant to cover every single aspect of the distribution, but rather to show what
it is capable of and give you a basic working knowledge of the system.

As you gain experience with Slackware Linux, we hope you find this book to be a handy
reference. We also hope you'll lend it to all of your friends when they come asking about
that cool Slackware Linux operating system you're running.

While this book may not an edge-of-your-seat novel, we certainly tried to make it as
entertaining as possible. With any luck, we'll get a movie deal. Of course, we also hope
you are able to learn from it and find it useful.

And now, on with the show.

Changes from
the First Edition

This second edition is the culmination of years of hard work by the dedicated members
of the Slackware Documentation Project. The following are the major changes in this new
edition:

Chapter 3, Installation, has been modified with new
screenshots of the installer, and reflects changes in disk-sets, and CD installation.

Chapter 4, System Configuration, has been
updated with new information about Linux 2.6.x kernels.

Chapter 5, Network Configuration, has been
expanded with further explanation of Samba, NFS, and DHCP. A section on wireless
networking has also been added. This chapter now reflects major changes in how Slackware
handles network setup.

Chapter 6, X Window System, has been substantially
rewritten for Xorg based systems. This chapter now also covers the xdm graphical login
manager.

User Input

Keys are shown in bold to stand out from other text. Key
combinations that are meant to be typed simultaneously are shown with `+' between the keys, such as:

Ctrl+Alt+Del

Meaning the user should type the Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys at the same time.

Keys that are meant to be typed in sequence will be separated with commas, for
example:

Ctrl+X, Ctrl+S

Would mean that the user is expected to type the Ctrl and X keys simultaneously and then to type the Ctrl
and S keys simultaneously.

Examples

Examples starting with E:\> indicate a MS-DOS® command. Unless otherwise noted, these commands may
be executed from a “Command Prompt” window in a modern Microsoft® Windows®
environment.

D:\>rawrite a: bare.i

Examples starting with # indicate a command that must be
invoked as the superuser in Slackware. You can login as root to
type the command, or login as your normal account and use su(1) to gain superuser
privileges.

#dd if=bare.i of=/dev/fd0

Examples starting with % indicate a command that should be
invoked from a normal user account. Unless otherwise noted, C-shell syntax is used for
setting environment variables and other shell commands.

%top

Acknowledgments

This project is the accumulation of months of work by many dedicated individuals. It
would not have been possible for me to produce this work in a vacuum. Many people deserve
our thanks for their selfless acts: Keith Keller for his work on wireless networking,
Joost Kremers for his great work in single-handedly writing the emacs section, Simon
Williams for the security chapter, Jurgen Phillippaerts for basic networking commands,
Cibao Cu Ali G Colibri for the inspiration and a good kick in the pants. Countless others
have sent in suggestions and fixes. An incomplete list includes: Jacob Anhoej, John Yast,
Sally Welch, Morgan Landry, and Charlie Law. I'd also like to thank Keith Keller for
hosting the mailing list for this project, as well as Carl Inglis for the initial web
hosting. Last but not least, I'd like to thank Patrick J. Volkerding for Slackware Linux,
and David Cantrell, Logan Johnson, and Chris Lumens for Slackware Linux Essentials 1st
Edition. Without their initial framework, none of this would have ever happened. Many
others have contributed in small and large ways to this project and have not been listed.
I hope they will forgive me for a poor memory.